


Somehow Sleepless

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [91]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Affection, Avenger Loki (Marvel), Avenger Reader (Marvel), Avengers Tower, F/M, Gen, Napping, Nightmares, POV Loki (Marvel), Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Relationship, Protective Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert, Stark Tower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24904720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: Sometimes, when you let yourself fall asleep in common spaces in the Tower, Loki keeps an eye on you.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [91]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 7
Kudos: 292





	Somehow Sleepless

The first time he walked in on you, it was a mistake. 

In all fairness, you opened yourself up to it. You were in a common space. He often settled into a chair there by the window because there was a lamp on the side table and sometimes he could see interesting things happening in the street. But there you were, in the same room. You were curled up on the sofa, face pressed against one of the throw pillows, and he could just make out your quiet breathing. He’d hesitated in the doorway for a moment, wondering if he should leave the room to you, but then his pride had resurfaced and he’d straightened his shoulders. 

He lived here. He had every right to sit where he wanted and read, and so what if you were sleeping in the same room? Like everyone else, you had a bedroom of your own. If you’d wanted privacy while you slept, you should have gone _there_. So he’d walked, a little stiffly, to his chair and tried not to think about how close you were.

Maybe he spent more time listening to you than paying attention to his book. But so what? Surely he _also_ had every right to pay attention to whatever he wanted to pay attention to. You weren’t really snoring, not exactly, but his ears trained in on the sound of your breathing, and he found that it was...soothing, somehow. You didn’t move at all. You must have been exhausted, to fall so deeply asleep in a public space. You’d been gone for weeks—he didn’t know much about where you’d gone or what you’d been doing, but when you’d come back early that afternoon, you’d looked absolutely ragged.

You were maybe the person who annoyed him the least out of everyone else in the Tower. He never caught you looking at him with open hostility in your eyes. In fact, you usually offered him a smile—not bright, not sunny, but almost...sheepish, like he’d caught you staring. You kept your distance from him like the rest of them as well, but he got the sense that you did it because you thought he wanted space. _They_ did it because they didn’t care to be anywhere near him. And that was fine, of course, because he didn’t care to be near them either, but there were some days when their cold reception got to him. 

It wasn’t like he wanted to be there. He didn’t have a choice. Thor had negotiated an arrangement with Odin: rather than locking Loki in a prison cell for what he’d done the last time he’d been here, Thor would keep him here on Earth, bound to do what he could to protect it from others like him. Nevermind the fact that he hadn’t been entirely in control of himself the last time he’d been here. Nevermind the way he’d been ripped apart, tortured, until his pride finally shattered. Odin didn’t want to know anything about that, and had cast him aside without a second thought. And now he was trapped here with people who wanted him dead. And you.

He saw the way you looked at him. He saw your smiles, the way you’d half-cringe at him and then look away when he caught you, but he also saw something else in your face. Sometimes it looked like bare interest, like you were mulling him over in your head, working through a million questions you wanted to ask him. On his good days, he tried to hold your gaze when you looked like that, tried to encourage you to ask him your questions. His younger self never would have cared what a mortal thought, but he’d been here for so long now that maybe some part of him wanted to encourage anything that wasn’t blind hatred. Sometimes you genuinely looked like you were about to summon the courage to speak to him, and, when you did, he’d offer you a smile and try not to let himself look too desperate.

But sometimes it looked like _hunger_. Maybe that thrilled him, a little, but who could blame him? Stranded here among people who hated him, of course your interest was a novelty to him. 

So he sat there quietly, keeping his eyes fixed on the page in his lap while his ears listened to you. He nearly missed it. Some time after he’d settled in, you awoke with a start. He heard the way you drew in a sharp breath, like something had startled you. Was it him? Surely not. He was perfectly still and silent—there was no way that you even knew he was there. He heard what he assumed was you hiding your face in the throw pillow, drawing in a shaky breath. 

He wanted to say something to you, partly to tell you that he was there and partly to reassure you after what must have been a nightmare, but the words wouldn’t come. They all sounded stupid in his head. He knew nightmares. Words never helped. He listened as you sat up, and then purposefully turned the page in his book. You gasped again, but this time it was immediately followed by a quiet laugh.

“Loki.” He tried not to think about how much he liked the way you said his name. “You scared me.”

He still didn’t allow himself to look at you. A thousand responses came to mind, most of them dryly observing that you were hardly the first mortal to be frightened by him. But they felt wrong, somehow. Too self-pitying, maybe. He pushed them aside. “You’re perfectly safe here. It’s alright.”

“I know.” Your voice sounded heavy. He listened carefully and could not shake the mental image of you letting your head hang down between your shoulders, maybe running your fingers through your hair in an attempt to soothe yourself. It was hard, waking from a nightmare in an unfamiliar place. Maybe it was just late enough, just quiet enough in the Tower, that he took a moment to imagine trying to help soothe you. Would you recoil from him, he wondered, or would you melt into his touch?

You pulled yourself to your feet and stretched. He stole a glance at you from the corner of his eye and watched your body move, elongate. He was struck by the urge to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you into him. What would you feel like writhing against him? The thought immediately made him drop his gaze back to his book. He was letting himself get carried away. He swallowed hard. “Off to bed, then?” It was dull, simple small talk and he hated it but, truth be told, he didn’t want you to go.

You groaned into the end of your stretch, and then sighed. “Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep out here. I’ll take my snoring to my own room now so you can read in peace.” Your voice was deceptively light. He wanted to assure you that you weren’t quite snoring, or maybe that he was perfectly peaceful with you there on the sofa, but his mouth would not move. “’Night, Loki.”

You left, then, your quiet footsteps padding away before he could bring himself to bid you farewell. Not for the first time, he wished his magic was different. Tonight he wished he could make it so that you could sleep in peace. But all he could do was mentally wish you sweet dreams.

You did not make a habit out of falling asleep in the living room, but it did happen from time to time. Especially on days when you’d just returned from abroad, he’d sometimes walk into the living room and feel a little thrill run through him when he saw your sleeping form. It was stupid to care so much, he knew, but he felt a little less alone when you were there. You often woke with a start, with a little gasp, and he found that he rather hated knowing that you had so many nightmares. He became a little bolder, offering more than bland assurances of your safety. And you only ever sounded grateful to him, never uncomfortable. Sometimes he’d ask if you wanted to talk about whatever it was that haunted you, but you never took him up on that. It wasn’t surprising, but he couldn’t shake his disappointment each time.

One night, you did not jolt awake. Your soft breaths turned into whimpers. He’d never heard anything like that come from your mouth. It made him close his book and turn to look at you. Your face was mostly hidden in a throw pillow, the way it always was, but you made a sound like a sob, and it dragged him to his feet. He crouched there in front of you and tried to take the pillow away from you, but you fought him, and gave a low groan that was so full of horror that it made his stomach clench. What on earth were you seeing? He said your name, a little too loud and a little too sharp, and then grabbed your shoulder.

Your eyes shot open, then, and in the few heartbeats before you managed to make your face go blank, he saw your unshed tears, your vulnerable horror. You sat up, then, and hid your face in your hands, and he just barely managed to keep from taking your wrists to pull them down into your lap. “God. Was I loud? I’m so sorry.” You sounded disgusted. And mortified.

“What is it?” He wasn’t sure he had the courage to push you too hard tonight, if you refused to answer him, but curiosity gnawed at him. Those few moments just then, where you’d looked at him like he could save you from whatever you’d been seeing, they were already settling into his chest. No one had ever looked at him like that before. He didn’t stop himself from reaching out to tuck some of your hair behind your ear. You did not flinch. “What did you see?”

You did not answer for some time. He did take your wrists, then, wrapping his fingers easily around them so he could pull your hands away from your face. You let him. Maybe he rubbed his thumbs across the soft undersides of your wrists.

“There was a kid,” you said at last. “No one was supposed to be so close to the entrance, but I don’t think he knew where he was. I saw the guards see him, but I couldn’t do anything. They shot him.” Your voice cracked. “I just watched them shoot him. I didn’t _do_ anything.”

You’d seen death. Everyone in the Tower had seen an endless parade of deaths. At this point, few of you even showed any trace of horror in your faces when you came back from the bloodiest of missions anymore. The difference, of course, was that typically you watched enemies die. You watched men who had caused pain and suffering die. Not children. In a way, he almost liked that you were so affected by this specific death. Your job had not hardened you entirely. “Did you take them out?” he asked gently. Some part of him knew the answer, but he wanted to make a point. “The guards?”

You ducked your head, but he saw the way you nodded. “It didn’t change anything. It didn’t bring him back.” He hated the way you sounded: hollow. Haunted. It would be so much easier for you if you _were_ hardened. But if you were, you might not be here like this, letting him touch you. He brought your hands to his lips and kissed them. Apart from that hunger he sometimes saw in your eyes, you’d never given him any signs that might make him think you’d allow something like that, but the silence between you now emboldened him. And you still did not pull away.

He ducked down, a little, to try to catch your gaze. You looked like you wanted to look away, but you didn’t. He tried to reward that with a smile. “There will always be death.” Maybe he wasn’t any good at reassuring anyone. “You cannot save every person. But you do good things. You put more goodness into the world and take more evil out of it than you know. _Please_ do not carry that child with you forever. Don’t let him keep you from doing what you can.”

You didn’t respond. Maybe he couldn’t blame you. He kissed your hands again and then stood up, but only to sit beside you on the sofa. You didn’t fight him when he put his arm around you and pulled you in against him. You put your head on his shoulder before he could even think to guide you to do it. He heard you draw in another shaky breath, let it out. Your body still felt so tense. He rested his chin on top of your head. What if Thor could see him now. He tried not to laugh at the way his brother’s eyes would bug out of his head. 

“Thank you.” Your voice was barely a whisper. He nodded against the top of your head and drew in a careful breath of the smell of your hair. 

“Go back to sleep,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

You did not protest. He could not project better dreams into your mind, but he did what he could. He held you tightly, felt you slip into a doze, and willed softness into you. Affection. 

You slept peacefully, there in his arms, and he felt something like pride swell in his chest.


End file.
